Lost Moments
by Traci Miller
Summary: Ichigo, as an old man, looks back at his youth through pictures. Angst, slight drama, language, character death, possible OOC, no true pairings. Past IchiKei, current IchiOFC mentioned


Lost Moments

By: Traci Miller

Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach or any of its characters. They belong to Tite Kubo...If I owned Bleach, there'd be a lot more yaoi...

Warning: Angst, slight drama, character death, language, possible OOC

A/N: Its been a while since I've written a fic, so I may be a little rusty. Please keep that in mind. :p

Pairing: IchiKei, Ichigo/OFC

Ichigo couldn't help but grin as he looked at the old pictures of his friends and family. His father, his sisters, his mother...But, oddly enough the pictures he looked at the most, with a bit of a bittersweet chuckle were those of his friends and himself when they were all young.

Rukia, Renji, Orihime, Tatsuki, Keigo, Sado...even Ishida. Most of these people were gone from his life now, in fact many were gone from this world completely. He rarely looked at these pictures, because while they filled him with joy at the memory of all the things they did together, all the things they had survived...the pictures also served to prove that he was now an old man.

No longer was he a young man with a life as vibrant as his orange hair. Hell, even his hair color had faded to white. He couldn't lie and say that it made him a little sad to know this. Looking at them all when they were so young...it almost brought tears to his eyes.

Yes, Kurosaki Ichigo felt he might cry just from looking at old pictures. At 71, he had come to terms with the fact that he was probably not long for this world, anymore. Part of him was sad about that, and part of him was just waiting eagerly for the moment. He had lived a long and full life, done many things, had many adventures, settled down and made a life for himself. He had grandchildren now, too.

Keigo had been the first of his friends to go. And so young! He'd asked Ichigo to go with him...to give him a ride! But, Ichigo had had other plans that day. Plans that could've been changed, had he just not been such a jerk about it.

But, no...Ichigo had to be a jerk. Instead of just giving Keigo a ride, he had made him go by himself. And, he always felt that if he had been there he could've stopped it from happening at all. He could've pulled Keigo away from that truck.

Instead...nobody had been there to pull him out of the fire and he'd gotten killed. And that, Ichigo truly felt, was his fault. Knowing logically that it was silly to feel that way didn't help. Of course he was aware that he had had no idea Keigo was going to be in a life-or-death situation that day! He certainly would've gone had he known! But, that didn't change the feeling of guilt and responsibility.

It didn't help that at the time Keigo had also been his lover. But, to make matters worse, the poor boy hadn't died right away. Ichigo had to sit by his bedside for many days and many nights, refusing to go no matter who tried to talk sense into him. In the hospital, Keigo had hung on by force. By force of the hospital, even by Ichigo himself. Yes, the doctors and Ichigo had prolonged Keigo's death.

It wasn't intentional! But...Ichigo had been hoping Keigo could live, could come out of it. But, eventually, Ichigo had made the decision to turn off the life support and let nature take it's course. Nature had been kinder than Ichigo had. Keigo went quickly, he had died within minutes of the machines being switched off. Without the electronic devices to breathe for Keigo, to make sure his heart kept beating...his body had been unable to do it on it's own.

Ichigo had cried so hard...he hadn't cared who saw...He stayed with Keigo's body for about fifteen minutes afterward and the hospital had allowed Ichigo his last moments. To this day, Ichigo still made the trek to the boy's grave, laying flowers there, making sure the candle was lit, that the grass and weeds didn't grow over the tombstone. In a way, he tended Keigo's grave much more obsessively and much more carefully than he ever had his mother's.

Ichigo had never taken another male lover. After that he hadn't taken a lover again, at all, for a long time. But, when he finally had it was a woman that had never been to Karakura High. She was a beautiful woman, in fact she sort of resembled his old friend Rukia. Of course, that had been more coincidence than anything, but few people believed him. Well...as he'd aged, he'd mellowed a bit, and he'd found out that it was much easier to just ignore people who just had to see sordid details where there weren't any.

So many things had faded since his youth, so many years ago. Even certain memories had faded, certain faces from long ago. His youth itself had faded. His body was now a bit hunched over, shorter than it used to be, his toned muscle was no longer there, but he wasn't fat or flabby. He was just a thin old man that didn't look frail but didn't look strong, either. He had many wrinkles, the elasticity in his skin having gone before he realized it, and even his bright orange hair had faded to white. With each passing year he was looking more and more like his inner hollow.

"_I heard that, King~!_" came the voice from within Ichigo's head. But, he rolled his eyes and ignored it. Sometimes when he spoke to Shirosaki right out loud in front of everyone. It was alright, though, they all thought he was going senile, anyway. One good thing about getting older, anyway, was that you could get away with practically anything and they blamed it on forgetfulness, senility or just old age and bad joints.

"Ojiichan, who's that? He's kinda cute!" a girl with orange hair, much like Ichigo's had been in his youth, asked him.

"That's a very old friend." Ichigo answered her.

"Older than you?" A boy with black hair asked.

"No, we're the same age." Ichigo said, raising a white eyebrow at the boy.

"Is he still alive? What's his name, Ojiichan!" the little girl piped up again.

"Che! Masaki, however old he is, he's definitely too old for you!" The boy shot back.

Ichigo frowned. "Leave your sister alone, Nanka. Older brothers are born first to protect those that come after." he said, finding that he had to recite this more to his own grandchildren than to his own children. And he hadn't had to recite too often at all until he'd even started having children.

Nanka frowned and bowed his head. "Yes, Ojiisan..."

"Now...Masaki..." he smiled as he said the name, glad that his daughter-in-law had agreed to name her first daughter after Ichigo's own mother. But, she was a nice woman and once she had found out the story behind the name, she had readily agreed, feeling that it would be nice for her little girl to have such a connection with such a sweet and strong woman from her own family's past.

"Yes, Ojiichan?" she smiled.

"This boy's name was Asano Keigo. He and I went to school together. He was a very...special friend of mine." Ichigo said, quietly.

"Oh, like your best friend??" she asked, smiling, a bit too young to catch any implications by his tone of voice that Keigo might have been more than just a friend.

"Yes. But, he died when he was 24. He was a bit of a clumsy boy and one day on his way to work he was hit by a truck. That's why you should always check before you cross the street." Ichigo said, wanting to override the gruesomeness of the possible mental image by adding a firm reminder that they needed to look both ways even if adults weren't around.

"Aw, and he was so cute, too..." Masaki said with a pout.

Nanka rolled his eyes. What was it about girls? Every time they saw a boy with a friendly smile and smoothe skin he was automatically cute. Jeez.

"Well, who's this?" the boy pointed to a picture that had many others in it, but to a redhead in particular. He already knew who Ishida and Chad were, those two were still around. And Ishida, who still spent time with their grandfather from time to time, had told Nanka about Orihime, who had died of a heart attack a few years ago. She had been in her sixties.

"Oh, that loud mouth. That's Abarai Renji. Be thankful you don't know him, he's irritating beyond belief." Ichigo answered.

"But, he's really old now. He at least falls asleep in the middle of being irritating, right?" Nanka was under the impression that all old people took naps in the middle of conversations or stories, and other inopportune times.

"I don't know, Nanka, but I doubt it." Ichigo answered.

"He's dreamy~..." Masaki said with a giggle.

Ichigo frowned. "I should wash your mouth out with soap, Masaki-chan."

"Aw, Ojiichan, I was just kidding..." she blushed. She was going to be 14 soon and Ichigo was worried she was going to really go boy crazy when that happened. Her parents would need to keep an eye on her. But, he was pretty sure she was raised well enough that she would do the right thing if the time ever came for her to make a difficult decision. But, the only reason he threatened her that way, and with such an old and empty threat at that, was because it was Renji she was calling dreamy.

"I doubt that." Ichigo said.

"Well, then...who's this? She looks like Baachan." the girl decided to just change the subject and pointed instead to the demure black-haired girl next to the tall redhead with the tattoos that her grandfather had called Renji.

"Her name is Kuchiki Rukia. And, yes, I suppose she does look like your Baachan...but we'll keep that between you and me..." Ichigo said, glad that his wife no longer looked at photo albums. She didn't want to see anyone from a time when they had been young, even if she probably had never met the people. It depressed her that she had lost her youth. Ichigo thought it went far beyond the fact that she was a woman and didn't like to think of herself as old or ugly, or any of the things he did not see her as anyway, but he never pressed the subject too much. There was no use starting unnecessary fights at their age.

Ichigo knew, of course, that he was not long for this world anyway. He could possibly still have a few good years in him, possibly another decade or two, but the thought of dying was no longer a big problem for him. Still, he didn't want to leave his wife behind. He didn't love her the way he had loved his best friend before he'd died, but he had known right away that he would never, ever love anyone the same way he'd loved Keigo. Still, he had had to move on with his life, the brunette boy would never have wanted Ichigo to mourn and mope forever, to put his life on permanent hold. And, he did definitely care for his wife.

Part of him did want to go searching for Keigo, and he naturally couldn't do that until he died, but...chances were that he could look for an entire Soul Society lifetime and never find Keigo, or any of his family or friends. His best bet would be if Keigo was in Seireitei somehow and...that would be a miracle upon miracles, the boy...well he was a fucking klutz. Ichigo thought if he tried to become a shinigami, the entire academy may end up going up in flames.

"Nanka-kun, Masaki-chan! Your friends are here to play!" came the voice of their mother.

Instantly, the pictures, the old friends, and even their grandfather were forgotten as they got up and ran off to go play with their friends.

Ichigo spent the rest of his day in a nostalgic mood, looking through his old pictures, telling old stories everybody had heard a million times before. The children weren't so good at containing their boredom with the stories, but their parents were. They were glad to have Ichigo over for a visit every now and then. He would usually spend the night and this night was no exception.

Little did anyone realize that in the morning it would be discovered that Ichigo had, whether he'd wanted to or not, begun his journey to his next life. The Soul Society. In truth, they had been keeping an eye on him, and his soul, when it left the aged body behind, was just as it had been when he was a young man, battling hollow and arrancar, fighting Aizen and any other threat to the wellbeing of his friends and the worlds involved. Soul Society felt it couldn't afford to let Ichigo go unchecked, even at his advanced human age. When he died, someone was there to perform the konsoh for him right away.

Fittingly, the two shinigami there were Renji and Rukia, even though only one shinigami was needed to perform this task. Renji himself had performed the konsoh, though, while Rukia looked on and insisted he was being too much of a show off about it. Which resulted in a fight between the two, that Ichigo himself broke up by picking up the cane he had used as an old man and smacking them both with it. After that, the konsoh went quickly, as there wasn't truly much to it at all. The only thing Renji needed to do was press the butt of his zanpaktou's handle against the center of Ichigo's forehead, something even Ichigo had done many times in his life.

Both Rukia and Renji silently hoped that Ichigo would at least be able to find Keigo. They knew how impossible it was, especially with Ichigo's likely forgetting everything from this lifetime, and Keigo having also likely forgotten...

But then again...Ichigo was the most stubborn person they'd ever met...And Keigo was kind of unique, too.

~Owari~

References

Ojiichan - grandpa; grandad .com/cgi-bin/j-e/dosearch?sDict=on&H=PS&L=J&T=ojiichan&WC=none&FG=r&BG=b&S=26

Baachan - granny; grandma, gran; female senior-citizen (familiar form of address) .com/cgi-bin/j-e/dosearch?sDict=on&H=PS&L=E&T=grandma&WC=none&FG=r&BG=b&S=26

Konsoh - Soul burial .com/information/bleach-encyclopedia/

Masaki - Ichigo's mother's name, meaning Japanese spindletree .com/cgi-bin/j-e/dosearch?sDict=on&H=PS&L=J&T=masaki&WC=none&FG=r&BG=b&S=26

Nanka - (Japanese) squash; pumpkin .com/cgi-bin/j-e/dosearch?sDict=on&H=PS&L=J&T=nanka&WC=none&FG=r&BG=b&S=26


End file.
